Defend Food Sovereignty: Reject NGT Patents
STATEMENT OF THE EUROPEAN LEFT
Let Us Defend Plant Variety Rights and Reject Patents on New Genomic Techniques
The Party of the European Left expresses its deep concern regarding the ongoing discussions on European regulations governing New Genomic Techniques (NGTs).
The decisions currently under consideration by the European Parliament and the institutions of the European Union will shape the future of our agriculture, our food sovereignty, and the collective management of genetic resources for decades to come.
For several decades, the Plant Variety Right (PVR) system has formed the cornerstone of the European framework for protecting plant breeding innovations. This model is based on a balance between recognizing the work of breeders and safeguarding farmers’ rights. Unlike patents, it allows innovation to be rewarded while preserving farmers’ ability to reuse part of their harvest for sowing purposes and breeders’ freedom to continue developing new varieties from existing ones.
Today, this balance is under threat. The proposals currently being debated concerning certain New Genomic Techniques could pave the way for the commercialization of plant varieties protected by patents. Such a development would risk accelerating the concentration of economic power in the seed sector in the hands of a few large multinational corporations and eroding the principles that have so far enabled open and accessible innovation.
We recognize that agronomic research and scientific progress can contribute to addressing the challenges of climate change, the preservation of natural resources, and food security. However, these advances must not serve as a pretext for the growing privatization of living organisms.
Plant genetic resources constitute a shared common heritage of humankind and a fundamental basis for food sovereignty. They are the result of the accumulated work of generations of farmers, breeders, and researchers. Their appropriation through patents on genes, genetic traits, or genetic information is incompatible with our vision of a democratic, sustainable, and solidarity-based vision of agricultural system.
We also wish to draw attention to the serious legal and economic consequences that the widespread use of patents in the seed sector could entail: legal uncertainty for farmers, barriers to independent plant breeding, increased dependence on a handful of dominant market players, and difficulties in ensuring the coexistence of different agricultural models, particularly organic farming.
The Party of the European Left reaffirms its opposition to the patenting of life. We call for New Genomic Techniques, where authorized, to remain fully excluded from the patent protection, and for Plant Variety Rights to remain the foundation of the European system for protecting plant breeding innovations.
The future of European agriculture must not be dictated by the interests of large agrochemical and seed corporations or by the logic of private monopolies over living resources. It must be built democratically together with farmers, agricultural workers, researchers, consumers, and all European citizens.
We call on Members of the European Parliament to defend a regulatory framework that protects the commons, biodiversity, farmers’ rights, and the food sovereignty of the peoples of Europe, and that prevents the privatization of life through patent law.